Back on topic - I don't believe there is any 'long-term' punishment. Afterall I've placed Hard Core domination matches where happy-go-lucky team mates decided jumping or standing in front of my gun whilst shooting was a good idea and get themselves killed through no fault of my own.

The best is when you're already engaging the enemy and some idiot teammate runs around you holding a combat knife only, right through your line of fire. On one hand I'm thinking , "Man, I should have burst fired more" but on the other, your teammates can't be so damn reckless in HC modes. Double edged sword I guess.

If you are talking about blatantly targeting and killing a team mate (corner trap, flash/emp or just shoot an obvious team mate) you can be reported just like any other cheater and banned. Where I play there was a frequent lobby joiner that liked to flash and stab his own team twice each match, then he changed to stabbing once and shooting to steal a care package for his second "offense". We had about 7 of us report him one day and about a week later he disappeared and that was almost a month ago. I assume they banned him.

If the developers intentionally chose to allow players to team kill twice without consequence, why should it be reportable?

If the team kills are by accident, it still affects the victim exactly the same (ends life and scorestreak). If that is not punishable, neither should intentional team kills commited within the allowed number of times.

So in other words you want your intentional misdeeds to be approved. Sorry but you don't get charged with manslaughter if you premeditate your murder. The punishments are different because of the intent. I would suggest that you stop being a poor team player.

it matters if you are going to be reported or not. they cannot possibly have a monitor in every single match 24/7, thus the automated 2 kill kick and eventual ban for frequent offenders. I play nothing but hardcore tdm and have never been banned. I get kicked about once per 2 hours of game time, so if you are getting banned you must be trying to team kill and getting kicked with somewhat regularity. If you weren't being such an a$$hat, you would not have to even worry about bans.

With reports of intentional team killing confirmed by activision security watching recordings, you can end up banned for a lot longer than 5 minutes. The dude we all reported looks to have been banned at least a month, if not perma banned.

Personally, I've never had the urge to go around killing my own team and have often wondered why the guy we reported even did it all the time. Would you mind sharing what you get out of it? What is your reward for doing it? What makes someone wait for a match to start, shoot 5 people once then shoot one of them again and get kicked?

What is inconsistent about punishing the same end result differently based on intent? Do a little study on any matter of law and you will find an inordinate amount of precedent for this very thing. If anything the punishments are very consistent with established soceital precedents. To expect otherwise would be inconsistent.

While the automatic punishment may be the same the reported intentional offense is reviewed and deemed to be worthy of additional punishment. It's like being held in jail (ie 5 min probation) for suspicion of doing something and then later being found guilty by jury (reported due to intentional abuse). You see intentional TKing falls under griefing (otherwise known as Trolling) which holds a higher level of disciplinary action. Just as Murder one has a higher level of sentencing than Manslaughter. Both result in someones death but the intent changes the outcome of the negative reprecussions. The problem with your position is that it assumes that the punishment only exists in one Tier (ie the 5 min probation). So you think that you should be able to do what you want and only get a 5 minute probation regardless of your actions. The additional tiers to the punishment exist to keep like minded people as yourself from adversely affecting the play of those who follow the intended use of the gamemodes. Intentional TKing is not sanctioned by the devs.

Should or shouldn't with regards to accidental TKing is just a matter of opinion. Personally I approve of the probation for accidentals because it forces players to improve their game if they wish to play HC. It also promotes accountabilty for their actions. The guy that got killed lost his scorestreak progression most likely due to the shooters poor judgement. That deserves some form of reprecussion and quite frankly if it happens often enough to get probation then the offender needs some time to reflect on what they are doing wrong and those that have been killed get rewarded by the removal of the offender from their session. You have to remember that 3 TKs does not invoke a 5 minute probation that only gets a 15 second time out and then you return to the match. However, continued TKing and/or a history of excessive TKing lands one with the 5 minute probation. As we have already discussed there are tiers to this disciplinary process. Probation isn't the first tier. If people aren't willing to improve their own gameplay to avoid probation then why should those that do have to put up with it? As with many things in life, incentives exist to encourage conformity. Those that choose to rail against it while free to do so have to live with the consequences of their decisions. Society has its ways of insulating itself from undesirable behavior.

Moreover, in a thread on the Xbox subforum, there is a user who got himself kicked from games on purpose by TKing until he got probation, to see how many times it took. 10 games. Sorry, but if you are so clumsy as to get booted from 10 games on the bounce, you deserve probation, and need to adjust your playstyle. Accidents happen, sure, but accidents happen a lot less with careful, smart play. 50,000 kills and counting in HC, dont think my number of kicks from TKing have reached 10 in total.

No matter what way we look at this, the acts that probation is there to punish are WAY more detrimental to peoples enjoyment of the game than 5 minutes on the naughty step. Go make a cup of tea, grab a drink, check twitter. And be more careful/patient in future.

Unfortunately, I missed his response back when this thread was actually relevant. But your response is the correct one. He had asked me if intentional TKing should be punished. The answer is an obvious yes but since the game cannot determine intent, his position that unintentional TKing shouldn't be punished simply isn't a possibility without removing all punishment. Personally, I do like that unintentional also gets punished because it forces the player to adapt and improve his game.

PS: After 30+ days played I finally got kicked for unintentional TKing over the weekend in one match (itchy trigger finger) and still haven't gotten a single probation. I've still got no sympathy for those that are so sloppy in their gameplay that they can't seem to avoid it.

I don't see how that is the same thing at all man, accidents happen THAT is a fact, but if you are killing your own team just to be annoying, think that it's funny/clever or just so you can rob their care package?!? Then in my book you deserve to get kicked out/banned from the game. It is a team game after all and there is no I in TEAM, although there is one in SELFISH however and that is what you are being by stitching up your teammates like that

CP theft yes i 100% agree with that, although how can you tell theft from sharing? Or saving it from the other team? Equipment kills, meh! Maybe under the repeat offender scheme yes, but having your claymore blown up doesn't set your Scorestreak back does it so not really the same thing. Annoying, hell yes but not kickable really is it

Don't believe its punishable but if your team killing just because you think its funny then I'm sure someone will report you for cheating. If you go around in game just pissing people off just because you can then people are gonna get back at you any way they can and if you get enough reports don't be surprised if you get banned.